Seemed like a decent article to me. I was a little shocked at the low ratings for karate, and I couldn't help thinking that the self-defense scores verged on being made-up. But hey, she's a beginner! Not a bad approach either, with the exception of scores being based on the schools she visited.

-speaking about Tae Bo: "despite their martial-arts pretensions, the routines felt more like aerobics in disguise than like kung fu" I always thought there were no pretentions about Tae Bo, it is aerobics, not kung fu

-

Quote:Do you want a chance to kick the stuffing out of someone? Take tae kwon do. Do you want to improve your sense of balance? Take karate.

yet her ratings on the arts in coordination and balancetae kwon do-4tai chi-4karate-4aikido-5Did she forget about that when she was writing he article?

-her analysis of Tai Chi made me want to retch

Maybe I'm nitpicking, but this is something I am very involved in, and when it is represented in a bad way I do not appreciate it.

Plus it was just a badly written article, she's a professional?

_________________________
We should all take ourselves seriously...and then crumple that image up and toss it out the window.

well she tried at least.Like any research paper though you have to have a large sample size in order do get a good enough idea of a MA because then you are judging the school and not the martial art. And whats all this about grouping karate styles and kung fu styles. I dont like it when they group the different MAs that fall under these categories because they are so different. I know some karate styles that are more like what people imagine to be kung fu and I know some kung fu that its nothing like people say it is. She did say that its only a superficial evaluation however and she did warn that practitioners of respective arts maybe disgusted. And I agree that its not a bad start for a beginner.

I personally just recently started kung fu, so I was hoping she'd give a better description of it. I've done more research about the school she went to and it's not your typical kung fu school (their website says they are a women's feminist kung fu school and they incorporate other martial arts into their kung fu).

My kung fu school is um, more typical.

I just think it was a cool idea for a clueless reporter to try out a bunch of martial arts and describe her experiences to the general population. Her descriptions were pretty funny, especially of BJJ. Olympic workout, anyone?

I had been looking for self defense training that didn't require me to be a weightlifter and specialized in close range combat, and realistic combat that didn't require years of work before I could use it to defend myself. I also wanted a skill that was deeply rooted and had good form/structure and looked as efficient as it worked (that eliminated Krav Maga and 'no forms' MA's). I researched all sorts of different martial arts and Wing Chun seemed the best practical art for me. :-)